Sense of Smell Wins Nobel Prize

Oct 4, 2004 -- Two American investigators Richard Axel
and Linda B. Buck have received the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work
on "odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system" -- the sense of smell.

In 1991 Axel and Buck jointly discovered a very large
family of about one
thousand genes for odorant receptors. They have since worked independently
and have in elegant, often parallel, studies they have clarified the
olfactory system from the molecular level to the organization of the cells.

The sense of smell has long remained the most enigmatic of our senses.
The basic principles for recognizing and remembering about 10,000 different
odors have not been understood. Drs. Axel and Buck have "solved this problem
and in a series of pioneering studies clarified how our olfactory system
works," according to the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in
Stockholm.

The gene family that Axel and Buck discovered contains 1,000 or so genes. It
is truly a superfamily of genes, accounting for about 3% of all human genes.
The olfactory genes in this superfamily gives rise to an equivalent number
of olfactory receptor types. These receptors are located on specialized
cells called olfactory receptor cells, which occupy a small area in the
upper part within the nose and detect the inhaled odorant molecules.